1. Field of the Invention The present disclosure relates to network testing, and more particularly, to determining latency of a communication network with limited computing resources.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network latency or network delay affects overall performance of communication networks. Network latency indicates how long it takes for data to travel from one node to another node in a communication network, which latency typically differs depending on various network conditions (e.g., locations of specific pairs of communicating nodes, types of protocols, communication medium, etc.).
Determining network latency amongst various network nodes is important for numerous network testing and design scenarios. With respect to network testing, measuring latency, in some scenarios, typically includes transmitting a data packet (e.g., an Internet Protocol (IP) packet) from a source node to a remote node (e.g., via Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Echo Requests (e.g., Ping, etc.)) and receiving a reflected IP packet from the remote node. Latency is determined by the time it takes for the data packet to be transmitted from the source node, reflected by the remote node, and ultimately received back at the source node. However, when the data packet is reflected from the remote node, the data packet is typically subjected to additional processing (e.g., propagation through the remote node's network stack such as the four
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layers of respective remote nodes) prior to transmission or reflection of the data packet back to the source node. Additionally, the data packet may be subjected to similar additional processing by the source node upon receipt. All the additional processing can skew latency determinations due to varying hardware and/or software configurations of the source node and remote node resulting in inaccurate latency determinations.
Despite efforts to date, there is still a need in the art for improved systems, methods and apparatus to accurately determine latency in communication networks. The present invention provides a solution for these problems.